


feeling your heartbeat (that's what i want)

by veterization



Series: fluff verse [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:12:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7068319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accidental act of sacrifice, Peter eating his feelings, and Stiles squeezing them out of him anyway. Or: the origin story of Peter and Stiles' relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feeling your heartbeat (that's what i want)

**Author's Note:**

> This work was lovingly bullied out of me by Hannah, who is not only a great pal, but also the kind of stubbornly demanding muse every writer needs around. After reading the first three parts of this verse, she asked for an origin story for Peter and Stiles' relationship, which I had originally only intended to briefly bring up in passing (in the first piece, it's mentioned that Peter took a blow to the stomach for Stiles) but ultimately agreed to write up in a tiny little porny fic. THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS: if you beg me for something long enough, I will give in, especially if it involves these two idiots.
> 
> You don't have to read the other three parts of this verse to make sense of this one, but it is technically the predecessor to all of them.

It all happens very quickly.

One: Stiles is mouthing off to the shapeshifter.

Two: the shapeshifter, not enjoying the mouthing off, leaps up in a mighty snarl and goes to take a swipe out of Stiles claws first.

Three: Peter, unthinking, jumps in front of him in an act of raw, stupid reflex, and immediately takes a gnarly hit to the stomach.

It hurts like a bitch, but not nearly as much as the realization that Peter just dove in front of Stiles to protect him from a nasty monster ready to put up a fight. Putting himself in harm's way in the process. Sticking his neck out on a limb when he's usually oh so comfortable lounging at the base of a tree trunk.

After that flash of panic and _what the fuck_ , Peter decides to prioritize: mainly, worry about why the hell he just nearly sacrificed himself for a scrawny annoying _always talking so damn much_ pain in the ass kid later, focus on decimating that shapeshifter now. He growls, loudly enough that the ground shakes, and slashes his claws directly over the shapeshifter's face. Considering the unfortunate reflex he just unearthed in Peter's body to protect and save and generally care about another human being, it's very satisfying to aim straight for that bastard’s moneymaker.

The thing goes down like a q-tip after that. It's fast and messy and bloodier than Peter expected, and he honestly would've preferred the fray lasting a bit longer because it would've elongated the moments before he would have to, inevitably, turn around and face the boy he just saved from certain death, or at least a nasty hole to the stomach. Not intentionally saved. But still.

When he does turn around, Stiles is still on the ground, eyes wide and palms bruised from catching his fall onto the asphalt. He looks young and shaken and pale in the light of the overhead moon, and his eyes are directly on Peter and don't seem to be interested at looking elsewhere, even the spectacularly mauled creature dead on the pavement. It’s not just his eyes on Peter, it’s everybody’s, searing into Peter’s backside, burning holes into his skin.

"Holy shit," Stiles breathes.

It's all the confirmation he needs that on top of doing the absurdly stupid thing he did, Stiles very clearly saw the absurdly stupid thing he did, and now presumably wants answers to questions like: where did you come from? Did you just take a mortal blow for me? What twisted corner of your brain did that impulse come from?

But Peter isn't the mood to answer questions. So he gets the fuck out of there.

\--

He ends up licking his wounds behind a gas station in the dead of night listening to the sounds of gas pumps being operated and tires roll around on the street, coming and going, coming and going. He doesn't even know for sure how he got here, he just remembers bolting away from that scene with the shapeshifter as fast as possible and running until he found somewhere far enough away to stop and breathe.

Turns out, he ran for a while. He's not even all that familiar with this gas station as it's usually out of the way for him, too many miles outside of the town to bother with, and yet here he is, balling up his bloody, ruined shirt and leaving it in a sad heap behind all the pumps. He watches his stomach slowly heal in the darkness, how the skin webs together and knits itself carefully back into healed flesh, breathing through the lingering pain. And the emotional smack in the face that's still stinging him because he can't seem to wrap his mind around what exactly happened tonight.

It all happened so _fast_. It was just supposed to be a jolly good fight, the kind of gimme scuffle that Peter really only attended to get his kicks out and flex his claws, get some good entertainment in from front row seats, and it all went sour so very quickly, thanks to Stiles. And how many plans have been ruined, exactly, thanks to Stiles? Why the fuck is Peter's visceral instinct to protect him? Why is he treating him reflexively like a coveted pack member?

Peter doesn’t even want to think about what everybody started saying after he fled the scene. Are they all now convinced that Peter’s some knight in shining armor they can all count on? Dear god. He shouldn’t have bolted, but what the fuck would he have said if he had stayed? Everybody would’ve wanted _explanations_ and Peter doesn’t have any, not for himself and not for anybody else, so running was the only option. He looks down at his stomach, the muscles of his abdomen twitching back into smoothness, into healed skin. What would’ve been the worst case scenario if Peter hadn’t jumped in front of that shapeshifter, really? Stiles would’ve died? Would that have been _so terrible_ for Peter?

There’s an ice cold throb inside his stomach that feels like it has nothing at all to do with his injury. He presses his hand into his stomach, wishing the physical pain could distract him from the hurricane in his normally so peaceful mind but finding nothing but smears of blood behind, the injury gone. He wipes his hand off on his pants and tries to block out all the conflicting thoughts in his head right now— _why the fuck did you just do that, Stiles would’ve been all right no matter what, you shouldn’t even care if he’s all right_ —before deciding that he can’t stand behind a gas station all night long trying to figure out why the hell he just risked his life for somebody else’s.

So he keeps running, and goes back home.

\--

Peter was attracted to Stiles pretty much the moment he saw him, and it only got worse the moment he spoke to him. It was that one night in the hospital, Stiles full of fear and shock and a skyrocketing heartbeat, when he first saw just how much _potential_ Stiles had, what with those pink lips and sharp wit and awed eyes.

It wasn't a problem then. It wasn't something Peter was going to _do_ anything about, nor was it an obsession that was consuming his thoughts. It was just an idle passing thought, an acknowledgment that Stiles was nice to look at and enjoyable to banter with, and that was that. He wasn't the type to beg, and he knew Stiles wouldn't exactly come to him easily if he tried to entice him, and he certainly wasn't the type to chase after someone oblivious, not when he was a perfectly good-looking, viable, proud man who could, honestly now, get anybody he wanted in bed. So he let Stiles run in his own circles and work off all that wild energy and kept his hands to himself. It worked.

After that, there were a few moments here and there where Peter would be reminded of how... pleasant Stiles was to be around. Their circles started to blend together, and their fights started to unify, and their loyalties started to land on the same side, and suddenly Stiles was there constantly, providing feedback and snark and information obtained from Yahoo answers. He always gave Peter a hard time, which was strangely charming.

There was one time when all of them were working together to bring down an out of control incubus. The entire operation they had cooked up was a complete disaster, nearly everybody getting separated and most of them sporting hefty injuries by the time the night was over. Peter had found Stiles nursing an impaled leg and cursing like a sailor behind the warehouse they had tracked the incubus down to, and he ended up all but carrying Stiles back to the car and over to where it would be safest.

"This is so embarrassing," Stiles moaned, throwing his head against the window. It was crowded in the backseat, hardly enough room for one person, let alone two, and Peter wasn't all too happy about being wedged half into the foot room and half against the back of the chair. "This isn't even a casualty of war. It's just a stupidity injury." Stiles shifted his leg and moaned again, the sound getting more and more pitiful.

"Stop moving," Peter told him, holding down his thigh.

"Do you think people will believe me if I tell them it's a bullet wound?"

"No," Peter said. Stiles wouldn't stop twitching his knee, jiggling his leg, shifting his thigh. " _Stop moving_."

"There's a _giant fucking splinter in my leg_! I'll move if I want to move!" Stiles whimpered, throwing his head back against the window again. He looked like he already mentally prepping himself for death.

“How did this even happen?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” Stiles said, eyes stubborn, but Peter looked at him like they didn’t have time for this childishness, which Stiles relented into. He groaned, covering his eyes with his hand. “I tripped onto some—some old crates. The wood looked like it was about two centuries old and some of it just—I don’t know. Was sticking up? And then went straight into my leg?” He started laughing, a hysterical sound that was a little frayed at the edges. “It sounds even worse when I hear myself say it out loud.”

Honestly, it was a little funny. Stiles always found trouble, even when monsters weren’t involved, and before he could help himself, Peter let out a few huffs of laughter that earned him a sock in the shoulder.

“Don’t laugh!” Stiles demanded. “Seriously, what the fuck! Is my pain funny to you?”

“Well, not exactly. You are.” Peter didn’t even realize how _fond_ that sounded until it left his mouth, at which point he vaguely realized he should probably get out of the car. He was just about to do it, too, when Stiles shifted his injured leg a little too much, his hand shot out, and he grabbed Peter’s wrist like it was his only hold on the mortal world.

“Okay,” Stiles said, eyes wide and face awfully pale. His free hand was clenched into a fist by the front seat's headrest. “I'm going to need some painkillers.”

“I don't have any.”

“Then, for the love of god,” Stiles wheezed, “find _some way_ to be useful.”

Peter wasn’t all too pleased with Stiles’ diva behavior, the huffy commands and degrading comments, but, truth be told, he would rather be here in the car than back in the warehouse looking through the shadows for a murderous monster. It wasn’t any fun, looking for a barbaric creature that was doing a good job of beating all their asses, and sitting here with Stiles, although slightly annoying what with all the whining and groaning, was preferable.

“You’re updated on your tetanus shots, aren’t you?” Peter asked, leaning in to get a better look at the wound.

“Oh _god_ ,” Stiles said. His hand was still on Peter’s wrist, but it was slipping, fingertips digging into Peter’s palm. “I’m going to die of something terrible. What happens if you get wood rot in your system?”

Peter ignored him, like white noise, and arched closer. The chunk of wood wasn’t in very far, it just seemed to be lodged in his leg at an uncomfortably crooked angle. Peter was pretty sure he wouldn’t bleed out if he removed it, but he had the sneaking suspicion that if Stiles did, all fingers would point straight to Peter and a hell of a lot of cold-blooded murderer accusations would swarm him. Been there, done that.

“Do something, would you?” Stiles yelled.

"What do you want me to do?" Peter asked, because at the moment it seemed like all Stiles was really interested in doing was complaining about the pain while doing nothing to actually remedy it. Maybe it made him feel important, having an injury. “You know that you’re not supposed to remove impaled objects yourself. Doctors are supposed to do it.”

“It’s not that deep,” Stiles said. His hand fluttered uselessly around his side. “And I can’t—I don’t want to go to the hospital and have to explain this.”

“You’re worried that Scott’s mother will tell your father.”

“Pretty much,” Stiles said. “I told him I’d be more careful. I told him _just this morning_.”

“You’re doing a tremendous job of that.”

“If you pull it out,” Stiles said slowly, ignoring him, “will it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Would it be reasonable to just leave it in there for the rest of my life?”

“No.” Peter looked at Stiles’ watering eyes, the anxiety and the pain evident there, and decided to make this quick. No point in counting down.

He yanked the piece of wood out of Stiles’ thigh in one fell swoop, and instantly Stiles cried out, doubled over, and managed to hit Peter in the eye with a flailing hand. Peter, out of the goodness of his heart, decided not to complain about it in light of the fact that Stiles currently had a hole in his thigh.

“Shit!” Stiles yells, his hands spasming at his sides like he isn’t sure where to put them, to hold the wound or pull out his own hair or hit Peter in the eye again, this time on purpose. “You could’ve warned me!”

“It would’ve made it worse,” Peter says. “Take off your pants.” 

“ _What?_ ”

“If you don’t want to bleed out, _take off your pants!_ ”

“Stop scaring the bejesus out of me, you ass,” Stiles yelled back, but he took his pants off anyway, wriggling until they were in the foot room. He was wearing purple underwear that grazed the edge of his wound, the hem of it stained red from the blood, but the purple was nice. Worked well with his skintone.

The resulting injury really wasn’t that deep. It didn’t tear his muscles, and despite getting beneath the skin, didn’t rupture any life-threatening arteries. Peter seized Stiles’ jeans and balled them up, pressing one large denim wad against the thigh, Stiles hissing under the pressure.

“Nice compress,” Stiles muttered. He reached out, like it was natural, and grabbed Peter’s wrist again, his sweat-damp fingers firm around Peter’s forearm. “Those were my favorite jeans.”

“I hear washing machines do wonders these days,” Peter said in return, holding the jeans in place. They weren’t soaking up oodles and oodles of blood, so Peter was pretty confident that Stiles was going to make it out alive, at which point he could buy himself new jeans and stop griping. “Stop talking and focus on your breathing.”

“Why?”

“Because it helps the pain,” Peter said slowly, wondering if Stiles also bumped his head during his little incident with the wooden crates. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”

Stiles actually listened, his even breathing replacing his moans and whimpers. Peter watched him in the dark, the way every soft breath and deep inhale shook his entire chest, how a sheen of sweat was visible on his hairline. Now with the panic diminished, Peter had to admire his work, like the handmade compress and the calm-under-pressure attitude he was bringing to the table. His hands were still on Stiles’ thighs, rubbing in circles without meaning to, soothing the shocks out of Stiles’ body. They were nice legs. Lean, pale, freckled, quivering. This was the sort of thing that probably made him a Bad Person, ogling someone’s thighs and the smoothness of their calves while they were still shuddering in pain, but Peter couldn’t exactly control his thoughts.

He kept watching Stiles, tuning into the sounds of his pulse, his breathing, his lungs. Without all that blabbering, head tipped against the window and eyes closed, he looked frighteningly like a piece of art in repose, a shining sculpture that shone in the shadows. Peter felt the inexplicable urge to reach forward and brush the sweat off of Stiles’ temple, but he resisted, sure that it wasn’t something he could get away with doing.

“I’m still alive, right?” Stiles asked. He cracked one eye open. “I think I am. That, or heaven sucks.”

Peter rubbed his thumb over Stiles’ kneecap. “What makes you think you’d get into heaven?”

Stiles snorted, laughing, and leaned his head back against the window. “Bastard,” he said. He looked briefly down at where Peter’s hands were still on his legs, touching him, squeezing him, rubbing him, and if he wanted to say something, he held back. He closed his eyes again. “Tell me a story to distract me, would you? Preferably one about you getting your ass kicked.”

“That would be pure fiction,” Peter said, and Stiles chuckled.

They sat in that car for a long time, and somewhere into the evening, Peter stopped minding.

\--

Peter decides to forget about it, specifically, the bit where he leapt in front of Stiles and saved his life. He doesn’t have to blow it out of proportion. Hell, if he wants, he can just stay here forever and never have to face any of those wretched people he sees too much of anyway, and that will be the end of that nightmare.

He’s not one to _dwell_. All right, he may’ve dwelled on things in the past, held grudges and complained for ages, but he’s a new man now. Water off a duck’s back. Live in the moment. _Whatever_.

He’s perfectly healed by the next morning, all traces of a massive clawed creature trying to gut him gone, which Peter takes a sign to go back about his daily business and not dwell, _not dwell_. Other people, however, are dwelling, which Peter realizes when Derek calls him right as Peter’s looking to make himself lunch.

“Derek,” Peter says pleasantly as he picks up, finally deciding that not answering looks a lot more suspicious than not. “Glad to see you’re still alive.”

“We were all wondering the same about you,” Derek says.

God, _we_. Why has Derek lumped himself in with all those teenaged mongrels? Are they all sitting there in Derek’s loft playing Twister and prank calling Peter for the hell of it? Peter sighs, opening his fridge, hoping it’ll disappoint him less than Derek calling just to nag him. He needs groceries.

“I’m alive and kicking,” Peter tells him. “So you’ll have to cancel the tombstone order.”

"You got out of there pretty fast after you went to town on the shapeshifter."

"No point in me sticking around."

"Some would disagree with that," Derek says, and instantly Peter wants to know who he's talking about. Stiles? Scott? Hell, did everybody see what happened and then immediately spent the aftermaths gossiping about it? This is why Peter should stay away from teenagers.

"I wanted to go home," Peter says. "I had just incurred a few injuries. I wanted to heal in peace. Nothing odd about that."

"Right. And that didn't have anything to do with the curious way you got those injuries?"

Peter digs his teeth into his tongue. Why does Derek always have to talk around everything? Peter's a big fan of using his words for decorative, theatric effect, but that doesn't mean he appreciates other people doing it, especially someone like Derek, who's usually so unpleasantly blunt. Why can’t Derek just get to the point to so Peter can end this call that much sooner?

"Why don't you say what you want to say?" Peter grits out, tightening his hold on his phone.

"What you did for Stiles was surprising."

"What I did for Stiles?"

"Saving his life. Putting yourself in harm's way for his sake."

Peter slams the fridge door closed. "That's not what happened. Don't say it like that."

"Then what happened?"

He has no reply. He doesn't want to stand here feeling Derek's judgment seep through the phone like a leaky faucet. _Drip, drip, drip, why'd you'd save Stiles? Drip, drip, drip, when will you admit that you're protecting Stiles like he matters to you? Drip, drip, drip, are you in love with him or what?_

"It was a mistake," Peter says through his teeth. "I saw such unthinking stupidity and selflessly reached out to help." And it was stupid, it was unbelievably stupid. Stiles shouldn't have been standing that close to the shapeshifter. He shouldn't have been there at all. "Did somebody tell him off after I left? Did they tell him how stupid that was? He's going to be fish food in under a year if he keeps showing up places he can't protect himself."

Derek says nothing. He's probably thinking of how much Peter's complaining sounds strangely protective and romantic and out of the norm for him. _Drip, drip, drip_.

"For god's sake. Hello?" Peter says after a full minute of quiet.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Derek asks.

"Do I know what—" Peter cuts himself off, infuriated that Derek's even asking. He's making it sound like such a big deal, like he needs a plan and time to introspect and that he needs to really rethink his life's choices, and it's not necessary. He really misses the era of the flip phone, how dramatically he could hang up on somebody. "You have the wrong idea about all of this, Derek. I don't need to think about it. I'm not _doing_ anything."

"You sure about that?"

"Derek," Peter says, getting more and more enraged the longer this conversation continues. "Whatever it is you're imagining up in that sick little mind of yours, don't drag me into it. What exactly are you expecting me to do?"

"I think you care about Stiles," Derek says, unfortunately not deterred into hanging up by that _sick little mind_ jab. "And you're not considering the consequences."

"Consequences?" Peter repeats. "Of what? What big bad repercussions come of caring about Stiles?"

"You could get him killed." Derek pauses, like he's letting that sink in. "He could get you killed too."

"What on earth are you even talking about?" Peter asks. "He's just a kid. And I don't _care about him_."

Derek sighs. He sounds like a parent, full of disappointed exhales and impatient frowns, like Peter's being unreasonable and thick-skulled and Derek actually has good advice to give. He doesn't. He has wild theories and conspiracies to share, and that's the extent of it.

"Just watch out," Derek finally says. "Think before you do anything."

"Goodbye, Derek," Peter says firmly, and once again wishes he had the kind of phone he could vehemently slam down with a satisfying finality. 

The moment he hangs up the call, a knock sounds at his door. This back-to-back popularity is a little bit startling, and it quickly downgrades into irritating when Peter looks through the peephole and sees Stiles rocking back and forth on his shoes outside his door. Why is the world testing him?

He yanks it open, his patience already worn. “Why are you here?”

A line forms between Stiles’ eyebrows. “Hello. I’m good. Nice to see you too.”

Will it never end?

“Why are you here, Stiles?” Peter says again, enunciating every world carefully. It’s a simple question.

“Why did you save my life?”

Well. That’s probably what he gets for being so unwilling to chit chat. He doesn’t have a good reply, and that’s why he didn’t find Stiles and propose they talk this out. He doesn’t want to talk about this. He doesn’t want to dig under the rock of why Peter dove in front of Stiles and then air out what’s under that rock for Stiles to see. He should just close the door and refuse to discuss this like a grown man; he doesn’t owe Stiles anything. He already saved his life, what more could he possibly want? The only good reason for him visiting here is to drop off tokens of gratitude in the form of cash, edible arrangements (strawberries only), or Amazon gift cards. This is exactly why he shouldn’t perform selfless deeds.

“I shouldn’t have,” Peter says, hoping to bully Stiles away with some good old-fashioned meanness. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, clearly not discouraged. Damn him. Everybody has such thick skin today. “But you did. Why did you?”

“What are you looking for me to say?”

“Stop answering questions with questioning!” Stiles yells, and he looks frustrated enough to turn back and march whence he came, but instead he pushes past Peter and shoulders his way into his apartment.

“Excuse me,” Peter says loudly, because walking uninvited into someone’s house is just plain barbaric.

“Yeah, excuse you,” Stiles answers. He stands in the middle of Peter’s apartment with a fair amount of certainty in his step, and something about the sight of him amid all of Peter’s things and furniture is twisting his insides like play-doh. He folds his arms across his chest. “Tell me why you did it.”

Peter doesn’t know. All right, so maybe he does know, but he’s not comfortable saying it out loud. He’s being put on the spot and that’s why he’s been staying cooped up in his apartment avoiding emotional epiphanies. It wasn’t fair of Stiles to come here.

“I can’t explain it,” Peter says.

“You can’t or you don’t want to?” Both, Peter thinks. “Try.”

Fine. If Stiles won’t leave, and if Stiles won’t stop looking at him with those hard, dark eyes, then _fine_.

“I want to sleep with you,” Peter says. That’s the best way he can explain it, and Stiles wanted an explanation, so there it is, the jackpot, the nucleus of Peter’s thoughts.

“I. What?”

“I want to sleep with you,” Peter says again. He steps forward. Stiles doesn’t step back, and maybe there’s a reason behind that. “I’ve wanted to sleep with you for a while. I think child-unfriendly thoughts about your mouth. Your hands.” He’s on a roll now and steps closer still. “Your tongue. Your neck. Your thighs.”

That’s what it all boils down to, Peter thinks—hopes—some unresolved sexual urge that told his body to protect someone he normally, _rationally_ , wouldn’t in a snap second’s visceral decision. Maybe one good fuck and all this will be over, and Peter’s body won’t surprise him with any more sacrificial leaps and random good deeds. Maybe it’s just as simple as a primal, crazy need for sex. Maybe Peter doesn’t even have to bother trying to figure out feelings and emotions and all that other icky stuff. Maybe he’s wrong and that tugging in his gut has nothing to do with Stiles and wanting to keep him, forever.

“You,” Stiles says very slowly, “want to sleep with me?”

“Yes,” Peter says. Stiles is still not moving, not retreating, and that _must_ mean something. “I want to tear your clothes off. I want to hear you beg for me to fuck you open with my fingers to get you ready for my cock. I want to see what your face looks like when I make you come.” He gets close enough to smell every single emotion under Stiles' skin. "I want to lick sweat out of your collarbones and hear you plead for more."

Fuck, it's hot in here. Or it deceptively feels about twenty degrees hotter than it was five minutes ago, and Peter's cardigan no longer feels necessary. He can hear the steady sound of his sped-up heartbeat in his ears like rushing blood and looks down at Stiles' parted lips, feeling with a surprising amount of certainty that Stiles wouldn't push him away if he kissed him. He wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him slowly, teasingly, aggressively, animalistically, _everywhere_.

Stiles swallows.

"You saved my life," Stiles says carefully, "because you wanted to have sex with me."

"Yes," Peter says.

They hold each other's gaze for a long time, long enough that another quick heartbeat soon matches the sound of Peter's, making a symphony in his ears of fear and intrigue and excitement. He waits for Stiles to bolt, to crumble and laugh and step back, to leave and tell Peter to stay away from him. Instead, he tips up his chin and swallows again.

"All right," Stiles says, and something in his tone sounds like he's challenging Peter to back down. He unbuttons his jeans and pulls down the zipper. "Suck me off."

He looks at Peter, waiting for him to back down, and Peter looks at Stiles, waiting for the same. The silence between them feels like people are shouting, like someone’s turned the volume of a song up to a point where it hurts his ears.

Peter gives Stiles a grace period of ten, twenty, thirty long seconds before he decides to go for it.

“Okay,” he says, and sinks to his knees.

He can hear a sharp intake of Stiles’ breath as he pulls his cock out of his underwear, a sound that degenerates into a whimper-gasp-moan hybrid the second Peter wraps his mouth around it and sucks, taking further and further into his mouth. Peter knows he’s good at this, but it seems from all those trembles and whines and groans that Stiles didn’t, which can only mean that he never quite expected this.

“I thought you were just messing with me,” Stiles says, already sounding breathless and wrecked. “I didn’t think you’d really— _oh_.”

Peter pulls back from his cock. “Do you want me to stop?”

Stiles’ hand immediately grapples its way over to Peter’s head, keeping him in place by a fistful of hair. “Fuck no.”

Well, that seems pretty emphatic, so Peter decides to continue showing Stiles just how good he is with his tongue. If this is how to get Stiles out of system, Peter is going to give head like he’s never done it before, like he’s being tested on it, like he’ll get a badge and a certificate when he’s done. He swallows Stiles down and revels in his little moans of encouragement, the way his thighs shake when Peter does something he doesn’t expect. This could very well be Stiles’ first blowjob, and the idea of being the first to pleasure him like this, to suck him into his mouth and leave him reeling, to set the bar as high as possible for anybody to come in the future, _fuck them_ , makes Peter harden in his pants. Stiles is never going to forget this. He’s going to replay Peter between his legs sucking him off every time he masturbates. Peter is going to make sure of it.

He takes Stiles down his throat and slides his hands around to cup his ass, press into the shivers shaking down his legs, touch the smooth planes of his thighs, rub over the tensed muscles. Something about this feels like opening a Christmas present he’s wanted for decades, and Peter wonders if it’s because he’s wanted this for so damn long, maybe even longer than he realized. Having Stiles in his mouth, feeling the warm weight of him on his tongue, listening to him praise Peter like he’s a god amongst men—if this is what a good deed brings, Peter might be trying them on for size again.

He doesn’t let himself slow down, not for a second. He wants Stiles invigorated and overwhelmed and sobbing and orgasming like he’s never so much as touched himself before, so he uses every trick he knows.

“Peter, I’m.” Stiles cuts himself off, either lacking the vocabulary or lacking the coherence to keep speaking. He squeezes the handfuls of Peter’s hair he has, thumbs shaking where they’re running over Peter’s ears. “Fuck, I’m going to come.”

Peter wants Stiles to do it. He wants to taste him, he wants to have his mouth around him until Stiles is mewling at the touches, until Stiles is getting hard again. He doesn’t pull back, doesn’t let his enthusiasm wane, and swirls his tongue for a finale that Stiles won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Stiles comes in Peter's mouth with shuddering hips, the taste of him different than what Peter expected, rougher, woodsier. He wants to get used to the taste, wants to have Stiles taste him too, wants to watch Stiles lick his mouth clean after sucking Peter off. He licks the last of Stiles' hardness away with soft, slow movements of his mouth, determined to touch and taste him until Stiles is overstimulated and completely wrung out. Or, if luck would have it, until he's made Stiles come a few more times.

As it turns out, he's used up his luck of the day.

“Holy shit,” Stiles says. His hands are still on Peter’s scalp, holding on like he’s expecting Peter to disappear into a cloud of smoke any second, and he pulls Peter away from his softened dick after it becomes too much for him. “You weren’t—you weren’t kidding.”

Peter looks up at him. “I wasn’t.”

“You really want to have sex with me.”

“I do.”

Stiles stares at Peter, still kneeling in front of his naked thighs and spent dick, mouth open and eyes wide and looking just like he did when Peter leapt in front of him and saved his life and turned around and there Stiles was, shocked and not quite understanding. His hands drop from Peter’s head.

“I need to go,” he says, and makes a beeline for the door.

He nearly trips over his pants as he goes, fingers fumbling to make himself decent and close his jeans, and Peter watches him run out the front door like a skittering hamster. How someone can go from riding out the waves of their orgasm to running frantically out the door is beyond Peter.

\--

Peter decides not to go after Stiles. Best not to frighten someone who’s just seen you swallow their come, especially since if that really was Stiles’ first ever blowjob—perhaps even just first sexual experience—he might be feeling a tad overwhelmed.

The next few days, absolutely nobody calls him or knocks on his door demanding explanations or accusing him of blowing Stiles to orgasm—he's not entirely expecting it but he'd put money on Derek coming over just to cross his arms and sigh at him—which either means Stiles was too ashamed to tell anyone, or he's told absolutely everybody including the police, who should be at his door any moment to explain to him just how consent works. Peter's not afraid—Stiles downright asked him to get on his knees and suck him off—but he feels like it's only a matter of time before law enforcement arrives ready to grill him about something or other, which is probably what he gets for defiling the sheriff’s son of all people.

Besides, none of this should even matter anymore. He got what he wanted—Stiles moaning and shaking for him while he committed the taste of Stiles' pre-come to memory—and now he should be sated and satisfied and ready to move on. He told Stiles that this was about sex, that leaping in front of him and taking a mortal blow for him was about sex, and he really wants that to be true. Things boiling down to primal, basic urges are easy: easy to solve, easy to accomplish, easy to understand. Once anything deeper gets involved it's not only hard to diagnose, it's hard to fix. So Peter tries to wipe his hands free of all this and move the fuck on while he still looks graceful doing so. 

Against his will, however, Derek's words come creeping up to him the next few days. All the cryptic warnings. The _sureness_ that Derek delivered them with. Even if Peter does care about Stiles, it's not an obsession. It's not love. It's nothing that'll get either of them in trouble. Derek just happened to see Peter do something stupid and save Stiles' life and now he's come to the wrong conclusion, that's all. He hasn't seen the full picture and he certainly doesn't know what the inner workings of Peter's heart are, what it looks like in there. Who he's valuing, who he's caring for, who he's interested in. Stiles isn't on any of those lists.

He almost considers calling Derek and telling him as much just to make it clear to him, but he doesn’t want to spend the next two hours being lectured on wrong and right and god knows what else Derek feels qualified to give advice on. The thing is, there’s an untapped part of Peter he’s never felt before that _wants to talk about this_ , try and get it out in the open and see what it looks like once it’s all on the table. Is it just some strange obsession? Is it something to worry about? He knows plenty about the spectrum of human emotion and the complexity of relationships, but not when he himself is involved. He’s learned a lot over the years about love and lust and affection, and he’s seen it in others, has identified it on their faces, but in his own belly, in his own body—he just feels a little unprepared, is all, and he doesn’t like the feeling. He’s not used to it.

The problem here is that he doesn’t have anybody _to_ talk to, except for perhaps Stiles, which would probably be the healthy thing as far as helpful communication goes, but then Peter would be showing all his unshuffled cards to not only himself, but Stiles as well, and he isn’t going to risk that. He can’t.

He’s better off just ignoring it. Stiles, his own thoughts, the memory of that decadent blowjob. It’ll all go away. It will.

\--

Stiles and Peter don’t typically hang out. They have very little in common, aside from their tendency to always end up in the same pickle, which just isn’t enough common ground to lead to getting smoothies together and having sleepovers. Now and again, though, they have the opportunity to spend time together.

When Stiles isn’t taken along on Disaster Missions—namely, when everybody is afraid that Stiles will end up prey and/or trouble—Peter is somehow always, without consent, assigned to babysitting duty. Everybody else would be out saving the world, and they would stay behind in Derek’s loft generally annoying each other.

Somewhere down the line, it started being fun.

Once, a few months ago, they were all in Derek's loft brainstorming ways to capture a rogue omega wreaking havoc in town, when Stiles stayed behind out of safety, and Peter stayed behind out of indifference, and somewhere between Stiles puttering around Derek's stuff and pulling out a chess set, the two of them were sitting down together playing chess in the dark. 

“Bruce Lee, so he can teach me some sweet moves, Ellen Degeneres, and, uh. Marilyn Monroe," Stiles said.

"Marilyn Monroe?" Peter said. "It's a fantasy party you can invite anyone to and you pick Marilyn Monroe?"

"What? She's hot." Stiles looked down just in time to see Peter take his rook. "Hey, stop trying to distract me!" He snatched up his knight and slid it over the board before Peter could try and predict what his next move would be. "Are you that bad at chess that you have to resort to playing dirty?"

"I'm wonderful at chess," Peter said. "You're just better than I expected." He smiled. "For the record, it's fun to play dirty."

"Why am I not surprised," Stiles muttered. "Who's on your fantasy guest list?"

Peter considered it. "Adolf Hitler, Al Capone, and probably Julius Caesar." Peter looked up and instantly noticed that Stiles was hiding a smile, lips rolled into his mouth. "What?"

"Just a stuffy group, that's all," Stiles said. "Your move."

"Oh, please. What would you and Marilyn Monroe even talk about?"

"Uh, everything." Stiles took a moment to grin. "And besides, talking's optional."

Peter moved his rook. "Well, aren't you the optimist," he said.

"What? You don't think I've got enough of a slammin' bod for her?"

"You're a very attractive man," Peter said. It was true—that mouth and that sarcastic bite couldn't be underappreciated—but Stiles still seemed surprised by the admission. He was looking at Peter with a fair amount of flattered disbelief, which was a show of humbleness that greatly bored Peter. "Don't play modest mouse with me."

"Come on, let me take this in for a moment," Stiles said, leaning his elbows on the table. "You think I'm good looking?"

"I can't speak for Marilyn, but I do." In the back of his mind, Peter wondered if he should've been admitting this. When he glanced at Stiles, he looked surprised, that crooked, cocky smile growing on his face that Peter had seen before. “Don’t tell me you think you’re some ugly duckling.”

“No, but—it’s different when someone like you—I just didn’t think you’d—never mind.” Stiles shook his head, but still looked rather pleased with himself. He slid one of his pieces forward on the board. “So am I your type or what?”

“No,” Peter said. He refused to go down this road with Stiles. Of course Stiles was attractive and of course Peter had considered what it might be like to have him moaning and begging underneath him, which was inevitable what with Stiles’ lean body and constantly moving mouth, but that didn’t mean he was going to discuss any of those thoughts with Stiles. He knew a bad idea when it approached him. “I’m not here to feed your ego.”

“Right. You’re here for me to beat you at chess,” Stiles said. Peter rolled his eyes, but really, he enjoyed the back-and-forth. Again, that was another thought he wasn’t going to share out loud. “So fine. Maybe me and Marilyn don’t have anything in common. What are you and Hitler going to talk about?”

“He was a genius.”

“He was also a genocidal murderer.”

“He was also undoubtedly smart, charismatic, and powerful. Not to mention that he has a very unique perspective on an extremely important turning point in history. World War II.” He calculated his next move on the board, trying to anticipate Stiles’ as well. He was making it difficult. “Just imagine what we could learn from him. I have a list a mile long of questions I would ask him.”

“You’re really into war stuff, huh?”

Peter shrugged. “I like history.” He moved his bishop; Stiles was making this game hard for him. He was still going to win, but still. He was impressed. “It’s the only way we can learn in the present.”

“Okay.” Stiles put his hands under his chin. “And what have you learned from your past?”

Peter looked at him, how Stiles was staring at Peter with that tiny quirk of a self-assured smile on his face. Like he was listening, like he was interested. Like he was having a good time, like he was gearing up the next witty comeback. It made Peter feel—strange.

“To avoid hanging out with teenagers as much as possible,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, hit me where it hurts,” Stiles said in return, still smiling. “Nothing about murdering people in cold blood? Maybe less crime? Less revenge? Didn’t learn anything about that?”

“Do you see me murdering anybody lately?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really follow you around town.” Stiles picked up his queen, held it, and tapped it against the board, thinking. Peter could see the thoughts behind his eyes, the concentration under his eyelashes, and felt oddly like it was a privilege to see Stiles think like this, with so much focus, so much deliberation. “What do you do these days anyway?”

“Cook,” Peter said. “Exercise. Read. Work on my blog.”

“You run a blog?”

“A recipe blog.” Peter looked at him. “Since I cook.”

“You learn something new every day,” Stiles said under his breath. “Well. Whatever keeps you away from a life of crime, big guy.”

“You wouldn’t prefer me to be in prison?”

“Then who would I beat at chess?” He moved his queen. “Checkmate,” Stiles said, out of nowhere.

Peter looked down at the chess board, and somehow, when he wasn't paying attention, Stiles won. _Without cheating._ He glanced up at Stiles and saw him sticking one of Peter's rooks between his teeth, grinning. A shot of something alarming, lightning-like, a spasm of emotion, hit Peter like a jolt of electricity to the chest, and he couldn’t place it. Couldn’t figure out what it meant. He looked away.

\--

The last thing Peter would ever do on this earth is admit that Derek is right. About anything, really. The problem is, Peter thinks he's starting to be right about Stiles.

He isn't even going to start entertaining the notion that Stiles holds any kind of danger for Peter, but he has been taking up an inordinately large chunk of his thoughts lately, and Peter knows that can't be good. He's not a schoolgirl with a crush; his head should always be impeccably clear if it's not filled with concern for himself and only himself, and he can’t afford for it to be otherwise. But lately he's just been... finding himself wondering about Stiles' well-being. Realizing that is such an alarming epiphany that Peter knows the only plausible solution is to cut off whatever is going on between them here and now. Peter doesn't need the drama, and he doesn't even need the companionship, so he might as well stop a problem before it begins.

The issue with this decision, unfortunately, is that it isn't one Peter can make by himself.

Stiles shows up a few days later. The sight of him through the peephole, body swaying nervously from side to side, hands playing with the denim on his jeans, it elicits contrasting feelings within Peter. There's that default stirring of arousal, but there's also caution, and reason, and the logic to remind him that opening the door and chatting with Stiles isn't smart.

His hand reaches for the door and opens it anyway. It’s like Stiles makes him _stupid_ , for the love of god.

"Hi," Stiles says. Despite his clear nerves, he doesn't look anything like the boy freshly sucked off from a few days ago. That wide-eyed hybrid of terror and awe is gone, which means that Stiles has either come to terms with his bicuriosity, or is here to confirm his unshakeable heterosexuality. If it's the latter, Peter really would've preferred an email to tell him the news.

"Hello," Peter says. There's a pull inside him coming from his drilled-in sense of manners telling him to invite Stiles in, but he keeps hearing Derek's voice in his head, telling him to be careful, telling him to watch out. It occurs to him then that the danger Derek spoke of was much more emotional than it ever was physical. "I didn't expect to see you."

The _after I rocked your world and blew your mind_ stays unspoken. Stiles shrugs.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“And how’s that been going?”

Stiles shifts from one foot to the other. “Can I come in?”

Peter doesn't think that's all that much of a good idea if only because just looking at Stiles is reminding Peter of all the things he was just swearing to push aside, like all the hullabaloo about feelings and the like, and it isn't helping that Stiles smells pungently of apprehension and arousal and Peter thinks he can guess why he's here.

Or maybe that's himself, his own smell, the arousal bubbling up just by looking at Stiles. It's not even something he can control; he just looks at Stiles and all he can see and smell and hear are all the ways Stiles responded to Peter sucking him off, the parted mouth, the heady scent of his desire, the tiny moans coming from his throat. It shouldn't be that hard, it shouldn't be that one amazing orgasmic encounter can overwrite years of looking at Stiles and seeing a bumbling awkward teenage boy, but then again, Peter can't even remember the last time he thought that while looking at Stiles, which loops straight back around to his original qualms: Stiles can't be here. Stiles is making him Feel Things and has for too long. Stiles is torturing him.

"I don't think you should," Peter says, folding one arm over to grab the doorway, creating a barrier.

Stiles' eyebrows twitch together, a momentary sign of discomfort. Maybe disbelief. "Is this about what happened last time?"

"Is it?"

Stiles sighs. "Do you regret it?"

As if that would even be possible. As if Peter could even will himself to think that. One cannot get a taste of Stiles pleading, whimpering, _coming_ , and then sit around wishing for redos to erase it all. Hell, that afternoon was perfect, and it's stuck in Peter's memory so viscerally, so firmly, so _vividly_ , that he's convinced not even amnesia could scrape it out.

"No," Peter says, the honesty pulling at him before his mouth can lie.

"Then let me in," Stiles says. "Please?"

He sounds like he’s getting more and more nervous the longer he stands here, and his fidgeting makes it clear that he's incredibly so. If Peter persisted to refuse him, he would probably lose his nerve and leave. He could close his door and listen to Stiles' frantic footsteps as they run away and know that he did the right thing for himself—keep Stiles at a distance to avoid any unrealistic attentions.

The only problem is, now that Peter's considering it, it's no longer making all that much sense. He's avoiding Stiles because he's—what? Selflessly protecting Stiles from the trouble that comes with being affiliated with him? Or he's just hopelessly terrified of falling in love with Stiles and then fucking it all up? He can't even think about falling in love with Stiles without feeling ridiculous and too young and altogether insensible, because love means worrying about people other than yourself, and Peter's made a wonderful living only worrying about himself.

Oh, fuck it. The one thing he keeps forgetting to factor in is his own self-control. He's strong-willed and strong-headed to boot. He's not falling in love, and he has to stop assuming that he will. If Stiles is here for sex, then who is Peter to turn away something he himself also happens to be extremely interested in?

"All right," Peter says, sick of the tug-o-war in his normally so pleasantly simple mind. He steps aside. "Come in."

He makes room for Stiles to step inside and for a moment, Stiles does nothing but waver in the door, as if he wasn't just begging to come in a minute ago. Maybe him leaving would be good. Maybe Stiles not prodding this and making it worse would be better. There's a nagging voice in the back of Peter's head that's hell-bent on reminding him how far gone he already is and how nothing good can come from he and Stiles sitting down and talking out their relationship and seeing what them being alone together could possibly do for them. He would try and scare him off right now if he thought it would actually work.

Eventually, Stiles steps inside, then stands right over the spot Peter pulled his pants down, and looks at the floor. Peter would give an astounding amount of money to know what Stiles is thinking right now. It's usually so easy for him to read people but right now it seems impossible, Peter much too focused on the blaring of his own senses to focus on Stiles'.

"This is a nice place," Stiles says, still looking at the floorboards.

"It is."

"I bet the rent is insane."

"It's all right," Peter says, more confused than ever. Is Stiles here to talk about blowjobs or real estate? Whichever is the case, Peter would like to know sooner rather than later.

He'd also like it if Stiles moved away from that particular spot. Standing there, full of obvious nerves and words he can't seem to get out, Peter is reminded all too much of the last time, and of how easy it would be to recreate it. How much he wants to. He looks at Stiles and just thinks _mine_ , which is absurd—it was just a few years ago when Stiles was nothing to him, just a curious blip on the radar, an obstacle more than anything else, someone who wasn't valuable or important or significant to Peter, and never once did he look at him and immediately think about how unquestionably _his_ he should be. Was.

Stiles moves an inch, apparently still trying to cobble words together. From the way his mouth is moving, it seems like he rehearsed his speech in the hall and now it's all fallen out of his brain, leaving him standing silent and lost in Peter's apartment. _You should go_ , Peter thinks desperately. It would be for the better.

"Can we sit down?" Stiles asks, pointing to the sofa.

"Go ahead."

Stiles sits down. Peter watches him feel the leather with his palm, try his best to get comfortable, but he reeks too much of anxiety to do so. Peter sits down on the other side of the sectional and waits for him to speak. His nerves seem to be mounting more than they are subsiding.

"So I guess you're wondering why I'm here," Stiles says.

"I am."

Stiles is tracing patterns into the couch, drawing doodles, outlining swirls. “I want to do this,” he says.

“This?”

“Have sex with you.”

It's like a gong goes off in Peter's head. He waits for the backlash, for that same scared, skittish boy from last time to come back and run out. Stiles doesn't seem to be going anywhere, though.

“Are you sure?” Peter asks. “Because you look like you’re about to throw up.”

Stiles scrubs a hand over his cheek. He still looks horribly nervous. Maybe he’s never propositioned anyone like this before. Or maybe this means something to him; maybe Peter means something to him. Under other circumstances, Peter would take this opportunity to cut the chatter and grab Stiles by the front of his shirt and kiss him, one of those hungry kisses with lots of licking into each other’s mouths and tugging on lower lips and taking off shirts while doing so, but Stiles seems like too much of a flight risk right now for Peter to jump on him. So he waits.

“Listen. It was just hard coming to terms with the fact that I’m attracted to you and that I really enjoyed that blowjob, all right?” Stiles says. “If it had been anyone else—I don’t know. Maybe I would’ve handled it with more grace.”

“I have trouble believing there’s anything you can handle _gracefully._ ”

“See, that’s exactly what—” Stiles grumbles to a stop, looking infuriated. “Can you just be a little considerate for a second? Do you want me to sleep with you or what?”

“I’d much rather have your interest in sleeping with me be unhindered by what I say,” Peter says. Nothing about this is going like he thought it would. He didn’t even think Stiles would ever come back around here, would walk over that same spot Peter sucked him off.

“Can you just—shut up? For like, five solid minutes?”

Stiles scoots closer to him. Peter watches the inches that disappear between them carefully. “And what are you going to do?”

“I just want to try something.”

He comes closer. “Stretch your legs out in front of you. On the couch.” Peter does so, watching as Stiles’ hands lift up, nearly touching Peter's arms, and drop back down a moment later. "Can you close your eyes?"

Peter frowns. "This is getting weird."

"I'm not going to do anything bad," Stiles says, and gives Peter a _look_ like getting suspicion about his intentions from a man like Peter feels a little rich. "Just close your eyes."

Peter watches him for a few critical seconds, looking for malice under all those palpable nerves. Finally, his curiosity to blame, he closes his eyes.

"Okay," Stiles whispers. "Don't move."

For what feels like centuries but is probably just one minute, nothing happens, and Peter's left to wonder if Stiles has fled and just didn't want to suffer the embarrassment of Peter watching him amble away again. Then, just as he's about to crack an eye open, a hand presses softly down on Peter's thigh, just feeling. It's very soft, very timid, like a ghost's touch, like Stiles is just feeling his way along, testing the waters. He pushes down on Peter's leg, squeezes his knee, traces the outline of his kneecap. Peter can hear Stiles’ every breath, how he’s trying to hold them in, and he tries to figure out what the emotions are underneath—it doesn’t feel like fear. It doesn’t even feel like trepidation, just… carefulness. Curiosity.

Stiles’ hands continue exploring, sliding down Peter’s leg, feeling his calf. Maybe he’s figuring out if he’s really interested enough to do this—in men, in Peter, in repeating this—or maybe he’s figuring out if Peter’s actually made of real skin and bone and isn’t just a skeletal monster wrapped up to look like an unassuming human. His fingertips tap and press around Peter’s ankle, then slide all the way back up to his thigh. Peter hears his breath hitch. He wants to open his eyes, to see Stiles’ expression, but he almost feels like the sounds he’s hearing are making up for his lack of allowed vision, the soft way Stiles is inhaling painting vivid pictures for him.

Stiles’ roaming hands slide up his stomach, over his chest, then back down to his hands, where a few fingertips run up Peter's forearm. Stiles keeps moving, brushing over Peter's wrist and feeling the bone there, sliding further down to his knuckles, continuing all the way down his fingers until he turns back around and heads up Peter’s shoulders. It almost feels the world's gentlest massage until Stiles frames Peter's face in his hands and the warmth of his exhale hits Peter in the chin. The smell of sex and apprehension is so strong Peter is practically suffocated by it at this proximity.

It shouldn't surprise Peter when Stiles kisses him, but it still does. Stiles' lips slot between Peter's, pressing close, and his hands keep exploring, running over Peter's jaw and his eyebrows and into his hair. It's like the more he touches, the more he discovers, the more he realizes that Peter's real and made of the same human flesh he is, and were it any other occasion, Peter would be concerned about Stiles learning this, but as it stands, he's thrilled that Stiles isn't running scared. If anything, he's getting more and more sure of himself, pressing into the kiss with a vigor that doesn’t feel experimental in the slightest. Peter opens his eyes when Stiles pulls back from it, and something about doing so feels like waking up after a tremendous sleep. Stiles is close, so close, close enough for Peter to count his eyelashes, and then Stiles is swinging a leg over Peter's hips and straddling him, coming that much closer.

Peter's hand comes up to slide up Stiles' side, and Stiles abruptly pulls further back, lips pink.

"I told you not to move," Stiles says.

"Can you really blame me?"

Stiles doesn't give him more time to defend himself; he swoops in for another kiss, hands firm on Peter's cheeks, and this time around, he's gotten into the groove. He angles their mouths together just right and licks his way past the seam of Peter's lips, touching their tongues together, and Stiles might be new to blowjobs, but he's clearly not new to writhing on top of men's laps until they're hard in their pants.

Stiles notices it too. He pulls back from the kiss, ignoring Peter’s attempts to chase his mouth, and says, “I’m turning you on.”

Peter shifts his hips underneath Stiles. “It would appear that way.”

Stiles seems to need a moment to process that, but once again, it isn’t something that scares him off and pushes him toward a breaking point of too much too fast. He leans back in, thumb rubbing over Peter’s cheek over and over like he’s fascinated with the stubble there, dipping his tongue into Peter’s mouth and kissing, kissing until they’re both bordering on breathless. When the kiss ends this time, Stiles has a fire in his eyes, a wildness that Peter’s sure he put there, that seems promising.

But Stiles is pulling away, further than before, disentangling himself from the hands Peter has on his waist, slipping down Peter’s stretched legs.

“Leaving so soon?” Peter asks, feeling disappointment bubble up as Stiles slides out of his grip.

Stiles smirks. “Not quite,” he says, and pushes Peter’s legs apart, shimmying between them. “Just—stay there,” Stiles instructs, unzipping Peter's pants and drawing his cock out of his underwear.

"Not exactly thinking about going anywhere," Peter says, fingers flexing on the couch's leather, because honestly, what could possibly be more appealing right now than Stiles between his legs wrapping his slender fingers around Peter's cock like it's a priceless piece of art, a powerful weapon, a thing to revere and respect. God. Peter must've been a very good boy this year.

Stiles takes his time stroking Peter for a while, just familiarizing himself with the shape and length and weight of his dick, touching, feeling, thumbing over the tip. It's torture if only because Peter's getting wound up and teased and drawn into a handjob as slow and delicious as taffy on a warm day, and it takes everything in his self-restraint not to push his hips up and take control. He's a fan of the front row seat, of being in charge, and he's not used to relinquishing that power and letting somebody else steer, but how can he deny somebody as wide-eyed and gorgeous as a boy interested in kneeling before him and touching him as if conducting an experiment, all gentle hands and thoroughness and slow, deliberate touches? Stiles is like a _dream_ in front of him, a mirage that’s still so, so clear.

Peter takes in an even breath, tilting is hips up into Stiles' grip. It doesn't seem to frighten him off, so he says, "Do you want to suck my cock?"

Stiles' hands twitch on the base of Peter's dick, and the uptick of his heartbeat feels like it's magnified in Peter's ears, his every sense focused on Stiles and the racing of his pulse, the blend of his emotions.

"Yeah," he finally says, softly, as if admitting it to himself.

"Want me to come in your mouth? Let you taste? Swallow around me?"

He should probably ease up, be quieter, be gentler, but Peter can't help himself. If the purpose of life is not to take advantage of those beautiful moments where a beautiful, horny boy is sitting between his legs, willing and aroused, and milk them for what they're worth, then what the fuck is? He knows Stiles can handle it; Stiles wouldn't be here if he couldn't.

"Yeah," Stiles whispers. "Don't move."

Then Stiles ducks forward, the air thick with his emotional buffet of apprehension and excitement and arousal and the delectable _desire to please_ , and he guides Peter's dick to his mouth to softly lick around the tip, taste the skin, feel his hardness on his tongue.

"You're hard," Stiles says, sounding awed. He licks the head again, like he's sampling ice cream. "Tastes better than I thought."

Peter wants terribly to reach forward and guide Stiles back to his cock with the nape of his neck, to push into his mouth and slide against his throat, but he restrains himself. Stiles sneaks him a look, and that's something Peter wants framed, a snapshot of Stiles between his legs with bashful eyes, and then Stiles licks his lips and goes back in, suckling Peter's dick into his mouth. 

"That's it," Peter murmurs, settling for digging his nails into the couch instead of reaching for Stiles. "Take it in. Good boy, Stiles."

It's obvious that Stiles is inexperienced with blowjobs, the experimental way he sucks and licks and shifts his jaw, and the evidence that Stiles is doing this for the first time with Peter is _dizzying_. Peter never wants him to do this with anybody else ever again, just him, _just him_ , and it takes everything in his self-control to not seize Stiles by the hair and slide him up and down on his cock. He settles for watching Stiles try to bob on Peter's length, lips stretched and coming away slick and pink, cheeks hollowed, and tilts his hips up just enough to drive deeper into Stiles' mouth. Stiles doesn't seem to mind, his rule of only letting Peter watch, not touch, starting to slip from his list of priorities.

But even with his inexperience, it's clear that Stiles was _born_ for this. The way his mouth moves feels natural, unpracticed, relaxed and certain, nothing like the rigid stiffness Peter would've expected from a newcomer. That tongue, those lips, that slick mouth, they're all the sort of features people like Peter spend their nights dreaming about and their masturbatory sessions thinking about. He looks down and watches his length slide in and out of Stiles’ mouth, how his lips are curled around him.

What really drives it home is the _enthusiasm._ It mounts with every passing moment, Stiles’ uncertainty giving way to fervor, to hunger. He tries to repeat some of the moves Peter did for him, sliding his tongue around, licking upwards, opening his mouth _just right_ , and Peter feels like he’s melting, sinking back into the cushions and melting. He doesn’t even realize he’s coming until he’s gripping Stiles’ hair with his fist and cursing, the coiled heat in his stomach rushing out, taking him by storm. It’s been a while since anything has taken him by such surprise, but then again—Stiles is always taking him by surprise. 

"That was—it was good, right?" Stiles asks, hands curling over Peter’s hips.

Peter reaches out and slides his thumb over Stiles' cheek right where his cock was a few seconds ago, not caring anymore if Stiles wants him still and unmoving. "Very good," he says.

"I—I wanna," Stiles says, and he keeps licking his lips, like he already misses Peter's dick between his lips.

Peter knows, of course he knows, he can smell it on Stiles' skin and see it in his shaking hands. He slides his hand around to the back of Stiles' neck, touching the short hair there. "You want to come too?"

Stiles nods. "Yeah."

Before Peter can so much as ask Stiles if he's ready for Peter to join the party yet, Stiles scrambles into Peter's lap, knees bracketing his thighs. Peter looks at him, pink lips that were wrapped around his dick not long ago, and he's not sure who snaps first, but then they're kissing again, and it's not like before, it's full of tongue and teeth and a previously bridled aggression. Now it's all unleashed wildness, Stiles' erection pushing into Peter's lap, looking for friction. Peter unzips his pants and goes about wrapping a hand around him when Stiles stops him, grabbing his wrist just as he’s shoving his jeans down to his thighs.

"Wait," Stiles says, pulling back from Peter's mouth. His lips are even redder from before, blood drawn to the surface thanks to Peter's ardor. "I brought something."

Peter raises an eyebrow. "Souvenirs?"

Stiles chuckles. "Not quite." He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out of a tube of lube, and he's either unbelievably cocky, surprisingly optimistic, or just loves to be prepared. Peter can appreciate that type of preparedness, taking the tube from Stiles.

"You were fairly certain I wanted this," he concludes.

"I had a hunch," Stiles says, hiding his smile in Peter's neck, where he gets to work sucking and biting bruises to the surface, like if he tries hard enough, they'll stay instead of heal. "You going down on me the last time I was here gave me an idea."

Stiles' tongue travels up Peter's jaw. It's almost distracting him from the implication sitting in his hand, and Peter forces his eyes open even though every iota of his being wants to dig his fingers into Stiles' hips, tip his head back, and let Stiles grind on his cock and moan in his ear. He sneaks another look at the lube, unopened and unused.

"What do you want?"

"I want—" Stiles groans. "You really need me to say it?"

"If you're too embarrassed to say it out loud, you shouldn't be doing it."

Stiles withdraws from his neck. "You're right," he deadpans, holding Peter's gaze. "I should go home and grow up."

" _Stiles_."

Stiles' hand shoots out to wrap around Peter's, squeezing the lube. Peter can hardly focus; all he can do is wonder if this is the first time Stiles has ever used lube, or fingered himself, or thought about Peter doing this to him. If he's thought about anybody else. That last one isn't a pleasant area for his mind to get stuck in.

"I want you," Stiles starts, holding Peter's gaze with firm, unrelenting eyes, like Peter's involuntarily challenged him into being as blunt about this as possible, "to put your fingers inside me and make me come."

Peter can do that. _God_ , can Peter do that, and hearing Stiles demand it makes it completely undeniable. He pulls his hand free of Stiles' grip so he can twist open the lube, ears and nose and every possible sense zeroed in on the way Stiles is reacting to every movement he makes. He keeps waiting for that hint of uncertainty, for Stiles to jump to his feet and scurry away again, but aside from a racing heart, there isn't an ounce of qualms to be sensed as anxiety in his body. Stiles wants this, wants _him_. Peter can hear Derek's nagging voice in his head, how he had asked if Peter knew what he was doing, and no, he really doesn't, not in the grand scheme of Stiles-related things, but he's always been the type of guy to live recklessly and confidently in the now, and the now has a boy squirming in his lap begging to be finger-fucked.

He starts slicking his fingers up, rubbing warmth into the lube, and is about to reach around to Stiles' ass when—

"What is that, watermelon?" Peter asks, grabbing the tube and sniffing.

Stiles laughs, drawing his lips into his mouth. "Um. Yes. I think so."

Peter tilts the tube until he can read the side. Right next to a charming illustration of two halves of a watermelon positioned to look like a rather juicy—pun intended—butt, are the pink words _Watermelon-Scented Lubricant—Sexy Fun With A Sweet Scent_. Peter would laugh if there wasn't a fully hard nearly naked boy on his lap.

"Smells like summertime, doesn't it?" Stiles says. "Like being a kid."

"Do memories of your childhood turn you on?"

Stiles smacks the tube out of Peter's hands. "Get serious here." He could be a lot more serious if this lube was unscented. "Are you gonna joke around or are you gonna finger me?"

"Both would be preferable," Peter says, but Stiles' unamused look is making it clear that choosing multiple answers isn't applicable here. "Fine."

They can banter later. For now, Peter's focusing on Stiles' face, his shuddering hands, his heaving chest, the delectable scent of him, the building arousal smelling heady and alluring and unbelievably tempting. It crosses Peter's mind that this is most likely the first time anybody's ever fingered Stiles before, and that this privilege is going to Peter. That Stiles seems to actually trust him enough to do this, which seems like more trust than Peter even knows how to handle. He stops thinking, concentrating on tracing Stiles' hole, pressing against it, drinking in Stiles' needy whimpers as he does so.

"Peter," Stiles whines, hips shaking, and Peter takes mercy on him and pushes in.

He's divinely tight around Peter's finger. He doesn't even know what to give priority attention to: the way Stiles feels around Peter's knuckle, the way he's shaking and rocking with need on his lap, the way he's breathing moans out into Peter's throat where he's ducked his head. The tongue he had sucking marks onto Peter’s neck has stilled, his mind apparently only able to focus on so many things at once, but Peter doesn't mind. Stiles could keep his hands to himself all night and Peter wouldn't mind; the treat here is watching Stiles come apart, watching him orgasm, watching him be touched by Peter and plead for more.

He slips another well-lubed finger inside, drinking in the hitch of Stiles' breath. Peter lets himself think about what it'd be like to see Stiles stretched out in front of him, giving him that view of his ass he's craving, letting Peter see how Stiles looks tightened around his fingers. He slips them both in past the knuckle and squeezes Stiles' ass with his other hand, kneading, rubbing the skin there.

"If you want it," Peter says, "go get it."

"Huh?"

“Push down. Pull up. Work yourself on my fingers. Set a pace.” He licks his lips. “I want to see you move.”

Stiles pulls back from Peter's neck to stare at him. Something like poorly hidden arousal flashes across his face.

"You pervert," Stiles whispers, but he's nearly grinning.

"You wanted to be in control, didn't you?"

"Yeah, except this is," Stiles starts, bracing himself with a grip on Peter's shoulders and easing down, "about you," he continues, rolling his back and his thighs to push down on Peter's fingers just right, "getting to watch me fuck myself on your fingers."

"Perhaps," Peter admits. Just the sight of Stiles rolling and rocking on his fingers, feeling that tight heat, listening to his breathy whimpers, is glazing over his brain, hardening his cock that much more. An undeniable want inside of himself demands Peter to crook his fingers and make Stiles cry out, so he does it.

Stiles does cry out. His movements stutter, Peter's fingertips rubbing against Stiles' prostate and refusing to relent. He considers just briefly touching it, just enough to jolt Stiles like a surprise electric shock, but then the idea of rubbing it mercilessly overtakes him, and now he's arching his fingers inside of Stiles watching his mouth drop open and knows he made the right choice. 

"I've thought about this," Peter says, dizzy from the way Stiles is groaning by his ear, pitched _ah, ah, ah_ sounds that have him losing control of his own carefully reined restraint. "How you'd sound while I finger you. How you'd look with your legs pressed against my shoulders while I lick you open."

He's thought about other stuff too. He's thought about keeping Stiles safe and close and warm and always around, about Stiles wearing his scent by stealing his t-shirts, about Stiles feeling at home in his home. Stuff he should never think about but has anyway. It's not just sex, it never could be, not with Stiles being Stiles and Peter just not having a chance to restrain himself.

"I thought about it too," Stiles admits, a secret little grin on his mouth. "Oh, there, yes—"

"What did you think about?"

"You," Stiles gasps. "Tasting you, sucking you, convincing you to do this with me."

"I didn't need convincing," Peter says, turning his wrist and pushing into Stiles that much harder. Every time he tries a new angle, Stiles' entire body shakes, an experiment Peter doesn't ever want to see end. "Even Derek knew. He warned me about this. You. Forgetting myself."

Stiles' moaning briefly turns into a breathless laugh. "He warned me too," he says. "Said I should think about what coming to you would do."

"And what do you think?"

"I think it went— _fuck_ —pretty well."

Peter is sick of talking about Derek, and makes it obvious by driving his fingers back up against Stiles' prostate and reveling in the instantaneous effect. Stiles is so responsive, so young, and he arches his back and hisses like Peter could ask him to give up military secrets right now and he would as long as Peter continues his rough massage of that magical spot inside him. Maybe later Peter can educate him, show him all his pleasure spots slowly, thoroughly, meticulously, spread him out on his bed and let him rub his scent all over Peter's sheets, but right now, he’s focused on watching Stiles roll up and down on his fingers.

There are so many ways he could teach him. So many ways he could corrupt him. Jesus Christ.

"Jesus Christ," Stiles pants, echoing Peter’s thoughts while his fingers digg into Peter's shoulders. "I would ask you to fuck me if I wasn't about to come in a few seconds."

"I will," Peter promises, because no way is he letting Stiles leave this apartment until they've both come so much they're light of head for the rest of the day. "Later."

He drives his fingers back into Stiles' hole, wringing broken cries from him that are sounding more and more like they're building up to a fever pitch. He looks shatteringly gorgeous from this angle, close to the edge and not bothering to hide it, even better than the glimpses Peter got when he was between his legs sucking him off. Stiles is a masterpiece, mouth swollen and gasping, eyes shut, entire body shuddering with the force of Peter's fingers slipping into him, nudging his prostate, looking to wreck him. This, _this_ Peter needs every day, every night, a pretty boy writhing on top of him, hips grinding against Peter's and coaxing him back into hardness.

"I really will come," Stiles warns, hanging his head. His forehead presses against Peter's, his hairline damp with sweat. " _Ah_ —"

"Come on," Peter murmurs, leaning in until he has ready access to Stiles' neck, laving his tongue over the flexing muscles there. He wants Stiles endlessly, to taste him, to touch him, to bite down on the soft skin of his jaw and feel Stiles keen underneath his teeth, let his entire body thrum with the vibrations of Stiles' moans. He reaches for Stiles’ cock, stroking it in time with Stiles’ rolling hips. "Let me feel you tighten around my fingers. Let me see you come for me."

Stiles whimpers, letting every single sound out, and Peter swears this won't be the end, that he'll hear every single breathless sound Stiles is capable of making in good time. He knew that Stiles would be loud, that he wouldn’t hold back, but this—the whines, the moans, the sobs—exceeds Peter’s expectations tenfold.

" _Please_ ," Stiles begs.

"Come for me," Peter says again, his voice getting deeper, rougher, and his fingers twist back into Stiles with declining finesse, aiming for his prostate, and Stiles obeys and seizes around his fingers, hips arching forward and forehead falling to Peter's shoulder, his hot, stuttered breath falling onto his collarbone.

He smells amazing as he comes, nothing but endorphins and ecstasy and release and even _trust_ , sobbed panting escaping him. Peter roughly tips up his chin and kisses his moaning mouth, licking his way in as he continues to work and push his fingers in and out of Stiles, not stopping until Stiles is whining with it, body tensing. All Peter can think about is how it'd feel to have that tight, clenching hole around his cock, to have Stiles bouncing on his lap and riding him, to see the stretch of Stiles' hole around his length, to come inside him and hear Stiles make noise of praise for him. He looks at Stiles and feels smacked, punched, completely windswept at the sight, at the gorgeous disaster he has on his hands right in front of him, at what he just created.

"That's it," Peter says, breathless just from watching Stiles, mouth dry. He kisses him again, quickly. " _Perfect_."

He slides his fingers out of Stiles before it becomes too much, and instantly Stiles is grabbing him by the jaw and kissing him, demanding he kiss back with the sloppy enthusiasm he's presenting, arms wrapping around Peter's neck and keeping him close. Peter didn't expect this out of him, these post-coital kisses—if anything, he expected a carbon copy of their first encounter and for Stiles to go running for the nearest exit with his pants still around his knees. He's been waiting for him to run since the second he walked in, but he hasn't, and maybe he won't.

Peter strokes his hand down Stiles' cheek, feeling more sentimental than he could have predicted. He knows that now would be the time to tell Stiles to get dressed and leave, keep this strictly business, but he wants him to stay. Ask him if his world has been rocked yet. Carry him over to his bed and fuck him slowly, teasingly, the right way sex should feel for the first time.

"This was a bad idea," Stiles murmurs on his mouth, and for a moment Peter wonders if he's somehow completely misreading Stiles' emotions, but then Stiles adds, "No more sex on leather couches." He shifts his legs, unsticking them from the sofa.

Peter touches the small of his back. "It was your idea."

"And I've learned my lesson."

Stiles rolls off of Peter and onto the spot on the sofa next to him, groaning as he flexes his muscles. Peter watches his sticky skin come into contact with the cool leather, watches how he rolls his shoulders and breathes in slowly as he pulls his pants back up. Everything in the air smells of satisfaction and pleasant exhaustion and perhaps even the promise of Stiles spending the night and leaving his scent all over Peter's apartment, and Peter can't imagine it getting any better than this.

"By the way, holy wow," Stiles says.

"Agreed," Peter says, reaching out to slide his hand over Stiles' thigh.

Stiles looks down at the touch. Maybe this is the moment, the second it all soaks in and Stiles realizes who he just let finger his asshole and how he really has to run home, but it doesn't, and it isn’t. Peter wonders if he's waiting for that moment because of his own fear, if he's genuinely afraid that Stiles is going to change his mind and turn his streak of good luck around on him.

He wants this. He wants this so badly, and having sex with Stiles only made it worse. He's used to always getting what he wants, killing or biting or manipulating to get it, but he's not sure there's anything he can do here but hope Stiles wants it all too.

Then Stiles' hand slides over Peter's on his leg, curling around his fingers.

"I want to keep doing this," Stiles says. Peter takes a moment to breathe in the sight he's currently lucky enough to be privy to: Stiles laying, clumsily dressed and debauched and flushed, next to Peter like something out of a Michaelangelo painting. "I'm kind of—feeling my way as I go, but I want to keep doing this. I want to drive you wild, honestly."

"Can I participate more next time?" Peter asks.

"You participated plenty from what I can see."

"I meant earlier." He gestures down his body, all the places Stiles has first squeezed and brushed over. "All the touching."

"Oh. That. I just wanted to see what it felt like. Touching someone with that—that _purpose_. Without you snarking in my ear while I was doing it."

Peter tuts. "As if I would have."

"You would have," Stiles insists, rolling over onto his stomach and propping his chin up. "So does this get to be a thing now? Do you want to keep doing this too?"

He looks like he's chewing on the inside of his mouth, like he's waiting for Peter to say no and kick him out. Peter wants so much to say yes that he's almost aching with it. He reaches out to slide his thumb over Stiles' cheek.

"I do," Peter admits. Something about saying so out loud feels like he's coughing up his vulnerability for Stiles to see, like he's just stapled his heart to his sleeve. "I think we can arrange something."

"Like a sex only thing?"

"Sure."

"We should make some rules," Stiles says. He sounds excited, eyes wide, probably a side effect of never having anyone to make sexual rules with before.

"Like what?"

"Like... no going on dates. Or gift giving. Or complimenting each other."

Peter huffs. "No compliments?"

"Slippery slope," Stiles says. "And no eating meals together."

"Fine. No birthday celebrations."

"No holiday cards!"

"No text messages with emojis."

"No voicemails longer than thirty seconds."

"No spending time with your father."

"No gift giving of any kind."

"No nicknames."

"No baking together."

"No divulging secrets in each other's confidence."

They stop when it starts to feel like enough rules to write up a typed list long enough to rival the Declaration of Independence. They look at each other for a while, Stiles probably wondering if there’s anything else romantic, friendly, or civil they shouldn’t be doing that he should include in the list. "Anything else you'd like to add?" Peter asks, rather dryly.

"I'll let you know as I think of more," Stiles says. "Can I ask you something?"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Am I going to like this?"

"Would you do it again?" Stiles asks, reaching for Peter's wrist. He wraps his fingers around it, and it occurs to Peter that he might be trying to get a read on his heartbeat, feel for inconsistencies. "Try and save me like that. Step in if I was in danger."

_Yes,_ Peter thinks, and the thought comes to him scarily fast, an unblinking, reflexive answer. _Yes, I would. Even if I didn't want to, I would._

He thinks about that, how dangerous it is to feel that way. To put someone else's well-being before his own. To have it viscerally embedded in him to protect someone. When did this happen? When did Stiles become so important, so precious to him? 

He shakes his head. "I can't say that I would," he says. "The sex washed all those reflexes out of me, I'd say."

Stiles' eyebrows lift into his forehead. He's laughing. "Wow. You just wanted me for my body and now you're done with me?"

He wants so much more than that. He wants his body, but also his affection, his loyalty, his humor, his love and his attention and his jealousy and his future.

"Oh," Peter says, touching Stiles' jaw. "I'm hardly done with you."

"Good," Stiles says, giving him a lazy smile, and then his face lights up like he's just remembered something. "I just thought of another one. This one's important. No falling in love with me," Stiles warns. He points a stern finger and grins.

The sight of it is infectious. Peter grins back, unable to help it, and ignores that aching, gnawing bit inside of him that would jump in front of busses if Stiles was about to be flattened by one, that's telling him _don't let him go_ , and says, "I promise I won't."

Spoiler: he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song Heartbeat by (my precious Latvian son) Justs, who deserved! better!! than 15th place!!!


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